


Meltdown

by forgetme



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Heavy Angst, M/M, Meltdown, Mission-related, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetme/pseuds/forgetme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Meltdown had gone differently?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set up for a Michael/Trevor fic that I might never finish, but the idea simply wouldn't leave me alone.

Michael herded his wife and kids into Tracey’s room and shut the door.

They were safe for now; all he had to do was to make sure they stayed that way.

Just kill all the fucking assholes dumb enough to get into his line of sight.

He’d done this a thousand times.

***

Amanda had green eyes. _Cat eyes_ he’d thought the first night he’d ever seen her.

_Hey, Cat Eyes! How about giving me a private dance?_

_He’d been drunk; she’d been a little drunk too. He still remembered the sashay of her hips, the way she’d still wobbled slightly on those insanely high heels. That night, he’d had to watch her walk away._

If only she’d stayed away.

***

Now Amanda’s emerald green eyes were wide open. She seemed to be staring at him in surprise – like the night he’d proposed after she’d told him she was pregnant.

 _He knelt down on the floor of that piece of shit of a trailer, then and there, without a ring and less than five hundred bucks in his bank account. And he could tell then that she’d been steeling herself for a fight, for a breakup, maybe even a_ get rid of it or else!- _kinda thing; what she hadn’t been prepared for was for Michael to be_ earnest.

 That was the memory his mind dredged up, and for a split second, he could get lost in it, could almost forget, except that she wasn’t staring at anything anymore. There was a single red starburst-shaped stain in the middle of her chest where her dark bathrobe gaped open. Blood pooled between her breasts, the breasts he’d bought for her.

She was lying in his arms, cold and slack and dead and if he kept looking at her, her pale, still face with those wide, accusing eyes, maybe he wouldn’t have to look at the bodies of his dead children.

***

There were certain things Trevor Phillips did when he was pissed off, meth, that was one of them although he’d cut back now that he was running his own business in the field, and strippers that was another, but these days strippers left a bad taste in his mouth. They reminded him too much of certain not-actually-dead, so-called friends of his, _former_ friends, who were a little too fond of cheap girls swinging around their tits for change.

Not that he was wasting his time thinking about that snake, and if he was, then only in a plotting murder kind of way.

Because they were fucking done, _he_ was fucking done with that traitorous piece of shit, once and for all. No more Michael Townley and certainly no more Michael De Santa, no more lying, two-faced assholes with pompous, fucking _made-up_ names.

So all he did now was just good old-fashioned getting drunk.

Yeah. Trevor nodded to himself and took a swig from his bottle of lukewarm Pißwasser. He sank deeper into the musty upholstery of the old armchair he’d dragged into his strip club office. Some moron had thrown it out, parked it next to the dumpsters in the back. No doubt some spoiled, rich bastard who’d thought he was too good for a perfectly usable armchair. Trevor could just picture him, the fat, pasty-faced fuck. Ugh, he wanted to kill someone! So fucking badly!

He took another swig, rolling his tongue around in his mouthful of stale beer and closed his eyes, trying to visualize all the things he’d do to the next rich, selfish fuck who’d cross his path. So many great possibilities… He could almost hear the screams already…

Except that they sounded a little strange, kind of like a high-pitched hum and wooden clatter, loud and far closer than the muted thump of the beat from the stage. Annoyed, Trevor opened his eyes. On the desk in front of him his phone was vibrating, twitching like a dying insect and making its jerky way towards the edge.

He caught it, just as it was falling off.  

One glance at the glowing display later, he wished he’d let it shatter on the sticky floor. Because what should greet him but the last thing he ever wanted to see again?

Michael’s smug face in full color 2D high res. That _fucking_ prick.

He had some nerve…

Slowly and deliberately, Trevor set down his bottle of beer, never taking his eyes off his phone. He felt the short pulses of vibration all through his hand, down his arm. He was clutching it too tightly, almost painfully. Just a little harder and he’d crush it in his fist. It’d feel good, no doubt about it. Only crushing little Mickey’s windpipe would feel better.

And yet… something kept him from doing it, something weak and despicable.

“Haargh!” Breathless from his roar of frustration, Trevor thumbed _accept call_ and pressed his phone to his ear much harder than strictly necessary.

“You fucking piece of _shit_ ,” he barked at the silence that greeted him from the other end. “You worthless, _lying, traitorous—“  Snake_ , he’d wanted to say, but the strange sounds he heard gave him pause.

Wet, harsh breathing, then something like a sob.

“T…?” Michael’s voice was unnaturally small; he sounded… _helpless_. Michael never sounded helpless. Smug, exasperated, superior, angry, but never _helpless_.

“…T?” Michael repeated, and so God help him, Trevor was sure he’d heard Michael’s voice crack on that tiny syllable.

“What are you playing at, _Mikey_?” This guy, this _asshole_ , Trevor reminded himself, had faked his death and buried their friend in his grave, and now what? He thought he’d cry a few tears into his phone and Trevor would come running right into his trap? Yeah, right.

So what if Trevor could actually feel his stomach tightening into a rock hard lump? That was weakness - and he could practically hear his mom spit the word at him, _weakness –_ Michael was playing him again, playing him like a fiddle, but this time? Oh, this time, things would not go old Mikey’s way.  

“I’m coming for you, pork chop,” he snarled into the phone.

More shaky breathing from the other end of the line, then, when Trevor was about to end the call, Michael suddenly mumbled, “T… I’m at the house…” He took another shaky breath that turned into something almost like laugh. “I don’t know… what to do…”

 _Cut the bullshit_ , Trevor thought.

Within two seconds he was on his feet and in front of his weapon stash.

“You just stay right where you are, _sweetheart_.” Just as the tips of his fingers found the cold metal of his assault rifle, he hung up on the ragged breathing that was Michael.

Suddenly, the small room was filled by the blare of sirens, but only for a few heartbeats. Trevor listened for them until they were swallowed up by the club music and faded in the distance.

He chuckled to himself, mirthlessly.  

“Uncle Trevor’s coming to get you.”

His rifle felt unnaturally heavy in his hands.


	2. Chapter 2

It was pissing cats and dogs when Trevor left the club, so he grabbed the shiny silver Zion he’d stolen from some rich, middle-aged, fat fuck, who’d squealed like a piglet from the moment Trevor had ripped the car door open until he had tossed him onto the asphalt the previous day. The car was too fancy, built for soft, squishy old farts who wanted to feel young and sporty before their inevitable stroke or heart attack or testicular cancer…

 _Testicular cancer… now that_ , Trevor thought as he turned the key in the ignition, _that would be just the thing for little Mikey. Something befitting his retirement._

But then… this retirement was about to be cut short anyway, wasn’t it?

Trevor let the engine roar and pulled out onto the street.

***

It was like a trip, almost. Like a bad one, the whole drive up to Michael’s midlife crisis mansion. Trevor would stare at the street, straight ahead, eyes fixed on the glistening road, forcing himself not to glance over at his rifle on the passenger seat every two seconds. A hard thing to do. He didn’t know why he even had the urge, but it was damn near irrepressible.

He’d wrapped the weapon in a raggedy old blanket that still smelled kinda like Floyd, like spineless pussy and what’s her name’s perfume.  At every red light bleeding into the streetlight smeared darkness, Trevor’s eyes would wander despite himself, despite the fact that he could feel the handgun he’d tucked into the front of his dirty jeans pressing against his stomach.

The kids. He wouldn’t be able to do it at the house because of the kids. Mikey had ruined them, pretty much turned them into useless, spoiled brats, but that wasn’t their fault. Parents ruined you, they _did_.  That just meant _they_ were to blame in the end. If you turned into a crazy fuckup… you couldn’t help it.

No, not at the house. He’d have to get Michael out, get him somewhere quiet, maybe have one last talk. There were so many things… So many things Trevor still wanted to tell that fat, lying piece of shit. _We could’ve had it all, sugar tits! But you had to go and ruin it, didn’t you, you selfish prick?_

His fingers dug painfully into the steering wheel; Trevor had to take a deep breath, force himself to relax. His thigh muscle was jumping like he’d taken some bad acid. Shit that made you want to climb the walls and claw out your own eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have come sober, with nothing but Pißwasser in his bloodstream… He was practically fit to operate heavy machinery. Disgusting.

One more corner, just a few hundred feet, and then he’d be in Michael’s driveway, and for all Trevor knew, Michael would be waiting up in his ivory tower with a sniper rifle…  

He pulled around the corner anyway, defiantly. Fuck pork chop and his cowardly ways. If Mikey wanted it to end like that, then so be it. Trevor wasn’t scared. He didn’t know fear anymore; everything he had ever feared was gone or locked away. _They_   weren’t coming back for him.

***

Rotating lights made him step on the brakes. Flashes of red and blue and Trevor was putting the car in reverse on instinct, out of sight and hopefully out of mind. Fucking cops.

The road was blocked.

The whole street in front of Michael’s house, the gate to the driveway open and cop cars in the goddamned driveway, flashing their warning lights silently.

Trevor climbed out of his car after a full second of staring, a strange feeling in his gut. Like ants were crawling around in there. He left the rifle, closed the door softly and walked closer, hands in his pockets.

A single cop was on the sidewalk guarding the gate, his weapon drawn.

Trevor couldn’t see, but he knew that there were more cops inside, in the garden, probably the house. He dived behind the hedge to keep out of sight. He could hear sirens in the distance. More cop cars to reinforce the roadblock and redirect traffic. _Fuck._

If they caught him lurking here…

But they wouldn’t, Trevor could already tell. All their efforts were focused on the house. And knowing his LSPD, he would bet that they hadn’t even properly secured the perimeter yet.

Either way, Trevor needed to get a good look inside the garden.   

_What have you gotten yourself into now, eh, sugar tits?_

_***_

His knees were hurting from kneeling on the floor for so long… although he couldn’t have said how long exactly ʻso longʼ had been. Michael had lost time.

He was holding his phone in one hand, eyes fixed on the display, and couldn’t remember when he’d taken it out of his pocket.

One moment he’d been alone, no phone, only Amanda staring at him, pale and disappointed, and the next there was the phone in his hand and Trevor’s angry voice in his ear, then only the phone and silence and now, suddenly, the phone was on the floor and heavy footsteps came trampling up the stairs.

“Clear!”

Michael heard the shout and it was like someone had flicked a switch inside of him. He was on his feet and then he was at the window, and then he was falling.

***

Trevor was at the back of the house – unguarded, thanks to the LSPD’s general incompetence – and contemplating Michael’s hedge when he heard the crash.

***

He didn’t know why he hadn’t broken his neck or why he was even running in the first place. He just ran. Rain was pelting his face, every drop like an icy needle prick. His sight was blurry, his ears filled with shouts.

The wall was in front of him.

Why was he running? What was the point? Shouldn’t he just lie down and die?

***

There was a hand on the hedge. A few feet away. Ghostly and pale, it sank in, obviously searching for purchase on the not quite stable barrier. Trevor smiled wolfishly and took his first leisurely step towards it.

***

Michael hoisted himself up, pain searing through his legs up his body, straight into his spine. He felt a million years old. Beneath him, the hedge gave and he rolled awkwardly onto it and over, landing on the pavement with something that could only be described as a _splat_ , the sound of a lard-filled balloon hitting stone.

On his back like a beetle, helpless, wet and utterly destroyed.

_Should have waited for the cops…_

But instinct had driven him, if there was one thing ingrained into his psyche, it was running from the law. His lungs were on fire now, though. He’d run out.

Out of time. Out of luck.

Michael blinked up into the sky, at the stars. You could still see them despite the streetlights. Even here in the city. Not as clearly as you could back in North Yankton, but they were still there. You just had to look.

***

He’d fallen through the hedge like a wet sack and now he was lying on the sidewalk like the piece of trash he was. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Trevor had pulled his gun the moment he’d seen Michael, but now he was taking his sweet time, one step after the other, placing his feet as carefully as if he was walking a tightrope.   

The rise and fall of Mikey’s chest was almost frantic, pumping away like a machine. His heart had to be hammering wildly. Rain was mixing with blood, making pink rivulets, bright, candy cotton pink on that white shirt. Black tie. How very formal. A man could be buried in an expensive suit like that.

One more step and Trevor was standing over Michael, gun pointed at Mikey’s face, right between those wide, anguished eyes.

It felt like the rain that had been soaked up by his clothes had all at once frozen into solid ice.

_This is it. I've got you now.  
_

“Hi there, sugar tits.”


End file.
